Research

Publications

• Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons: a replication and an extension to income inequality (With Michalis Drouvelis) Economic Inquiry (2025). [Link] 

Abstract: Social cooperation often requires individuals to exhibit restraint for the greater good, incurring costs for maintaining public goods or establishing them through generosity. Will cooperative behaviors differ between maintenance and provision dilemmas? We replicate findings showing that low cooperation is more likely in maintenance than provision scenarios among a non-student sample with reciprocity being the main reason behind cooperative differences. A separate experiment reports similar effects in the case of income inequality, also suggesting dilemma-specific reciprocity is vital in averting the 'tragedy of the commons'. Our findings reinforce and broaden previous conclusions in the literature. 

Working Papers

• Transparency and whistleblowing in public goods provision with rent-extracting administrators (With Michalis Drouvelis and Johannes Lohse, JMP)

 Abstract: This paper investigates how transparency and whistleblowing influence public goods provision in the presence of administrators who may engage in rent extraction. Using a repeated public trust game experiment, we find that both institutions increase voluntary contributions by approximately 40% compared to a baseline where contributors cannot distinguish between rent extraction and low contributions. However, they operate through distinct behavioural channels. Transparency reduces the roundwise decline of contributions, while whistleblowing triggers an early boost in contributions. To distinguish these mechanisms, we estimate a structural panel vector autoregressive model (PVAR). Results from this model confirm that whistleblowing operates predominantly through an assurance mechanism, with little evidence of deterrence, as actual whistleblowing occurs infrequently and administrators’ rent extraction is largely unaffected. Our results highlight that whistleblowing, despite being costly, can be an effective substitute for full transparency, especially when full transparency is difficult or costly to implement. 

• Income inequality, group identification in public good games (With Michalis Drouvelis).

• The effect of induced emotion on leading-by-example (With Michalis Drouvelis). [Link] (R&R)

• Fairness perceptions and pro-social behavior in luck and merit-based groups (With Michalis Drouvelis, R&R).

• Intelligence and the dynamics of free riding in public good experiments (With Michalis Drouvelis and Rati Mekvabishvili) 

Working in Progress

• Cooperation and income inequality: a cross-cultural experiment   (With Michalis Drouvelis) Writing-up stage.

• Dishonesty across non-WEIRD societies (With Michalis Drouvelis) Writing-up stage.

• Voices over facts (With Michalis Drouvelis and Francesco Maria Esposito).